Gorillas Safe During COVID-19

October 2020

                Keeping the World’s Last Mountain
                  Gorillas Safe During COVID-19
By Jennifer Flowers

Gorilla trekking in Rwanda—with a number of new rules in place.
Just 10 minutes after climbing
over the volcanic stone wall, we
found the mountain gorillas.

I was on the outskirts of Volcanoes
National Park, a 62-square-mile rain
forest in the Virunga Mountains of
northwestern Rwanda, home to some
of the world’s last remaining great apes.
I was joined by four other wide-eyed
trekkers and our porters—one of them
the barrel-chested Francois Bigirimana,
a former porter for the famed late
primatologist Dian Fossey.
Bigirimana’s perpetual smile emanated
from crinkled eyes above his face mask.
My eyes fell first on the silverback male
of the 16-member Muhoza family, one
of the park’s 20 resident families.
Marambo was surrounded by his wives
and children, napping face down, his enormous thumb—so humanlike—propping up his forehead. Even
from a few dozen feet away, the massive creature felt so close to me, with nothing between us but a tangle of
green foliage.
Then, out of nowhere, one of the baby gorillas ran toward us, and my heart stopped in my chest. Before we
could react, Bigirimana deftly hacked a path for us with his machete in the uneven forest terrain that led us
away from the curious baby. Stinging nettles grazed my leg as I scrambled up a small incline to get out of
reach, but the words of Bigirimana from our briefing earlier that morning kept me moving.
“If people catch coronavirus, they go to the hospital,” he had said. “If gorillas get coronavirus, they can’t go to
the hospital. They live in the jungle. If one dies, another dies, and another, until they’re finished.”
“If gorillas get coronavirus, they can’t go to the hospital. If one dies, another dies, and another, until
they’re finished.”
If someone had told me earlier this year that I’d be going on my first-ever gorilla trek during a pandemic, I
would have laughed. But when Rwanda reopened its borders on August 1, thanks to successful COVID-19
case management and strict new health and travel protocols, my inner conservationist felt compelled to

travel there to get a firsthand look at Rwanda’s new precautions to keep the virus from spreading to the
vulnerable great apes—of which there are only 1,063 left in the world, spread out within habitats in Rwanda,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.
After navigating the new realities of travel to Rwanda with Nairobi-based Micato
Safaris, I set off for the tiny East African nation in September.
COVID-19 isn’t the first time mountain
gorillas have been threatened by human
disease, according to Tara Stoinski,
president, CEO, and chief scientific
officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
The potentially deadly coronavirus
outbreak has, however, posed a serious
new threat to the endangered apes.
“Because gorillas share 98 percent of our
DNA, they are highly susceptible to
human respiratory viruses,” says
Stoinski, whose nonprofit group
continues Fossey’s conservation work in
Rwanda and the eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo. “COVID-19 has just
made people more aware of what has
always been a challenge with great ape
tourism.”
For years, experts have continued to look
for new ways to reduce the risk of human
respiratory viruses on great apes. Up to 20 percent of deaths among mountain gorillas are caused by
respiratory illnesses, according to gorilla doctors who work in the region. A flurry of YouTube videos in
recent years depict curious gorillas touching humans who allow them to move close, which some say fuels a
desire for uninformed viewers to have the same experience.
When the pandemic first appeared in Rwanda in March, new protocols for gorilla encounters began
immediately at the research level. Gorilla experts and government officials considered the monitoring of the
well-being of individual gorilla families essential work during the coronavirus, so they worked quickly to
revise and enforce stricter new rules. When domestic tourism opened on June 17, the same protocols for
researchers applied to recreational park visitors, according to Prosper Uwingeli, chief park warden
of Volcanoes National Park since 2008.
“Experts say COVID-19 is not going anywhere, and no matter what, there will be other outbreaks after
COVID-19,” he says. “We are not just waiting for the vaccine to come. We are thinking about all these
precautionary measures now.”
“We are not just waiting for the vaccine to come. We are thinking about all these precautionary measures
now.”
Since June, Volcanoes National Park has required proof of negative COVID-19 test results at the visitor
center, a face mask at all times, and temperature checks and mandatory hand sanitizing at both the visitor
center and at the park’s entrance. Just before crossing into the park, and right before leaving it, guides now
use spray bottles containing alcohol to sanitize the shoes of trekkers. Once inside and right before
approaching a gorilla family, trekkers must put on new surgical masks provided by guides and sanitize their
hands. (There is a strict no-contact policy with the gorillas, but this is an extra precautionary measure.) At
the sighting itself, the old distancing rule from gorillas had been 23 feet, and now it’s 33. And where the
previous rule for visiting a single gorilla family was one group of up to eight people per day, the limit is now
six so that guides can better manage the new distancing rules and sanitizing procedures.

For international travelers, the process begins long
before entry into Volcanoes National Park: Foreign
visitors must present two COVID-19 tests, one within 120
hours of departing for Rwanda, and one upon landing,
which requires a quarantine of up to 24 hours until
results come back. (The Rwandan government also tests
all travelers 72 hours before their departure, to ensure
that visitors didn’t contract anything in-country.)
According to Uwingeli, it’s too early to say whether these
new rules, which are reviewed every two weeks and
adjusted if necessary, are here to stay following the
global distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, citing the fact
that the park is only a few months into implementing
them. But he emphasized that the health of the mountain
gorillas—and the tourists—would remain the primary
goal.
Even with these extra protocols and procedures, the
benefits of tourism, when done right, far outweigh the
risks.
“Tourism fuels conservation in Rwanda,” says Stoinski,
whose team in Rwanda is continuing its work through
the pandemic to launch its first permanent home, with a state-of-the-art research center and public exhibits,
right next to the park in the second half of 2021. “It not only supports the parks where the gorillas live, but it
also supports the other three national parks in Rwanda. And on top of that, it’s a critical source of
employment and income for the local communities that live near the gorillas who are guides or porters or
work in hospitality.”
According to Visit Rwanda, the country saw more than 17,000 visitors to Volcanoes National Park in 2019;
the revenue for gorilla tourism alone, which brings in the most park revenue by far, was $107 million, up 59
percent in 2019 compared to the previous year. The majority of that income came from international gorilla
trekking permits, which cost $1,500 per person for a single hour with the gorillas. Ten percent of the revenue
coming from gorilla permits goes directly to local communities in order for them to build local infrastructure
such as schools and roads, and another 5 percent of permit revenue is set aside for compensation for crop
damage due to wildlife.
This win-win relationship among tourism, communities, and gorilla conservation, led by President Paul
Kagame—just 26 years after the genocide that killed close to 1 million people—has become a global role
model for community-driven, government-supported wildlife conservation that, in nonpandemic times,
also fuels the country’s overall economy. All decisions about tourism are approved by the Rwanda
Development Board, a government-run organization responsible for encouraging growth in the private
sector, under the advice of experts. In 2019, tourism made $498 million in revenue and brought 1.6 million
people into the country.
“There’s recognition by the leadership of the country, all the way up to President Kagame himself, that
nature is one of their most strategic assets,” says Fred Swaniker, the Nairobi-based founder of African
Leadership University, an institute of higher learning with campuses in Rwanda and Mauritius, and satellite
campuses across the continent, designed to teach ethical leadership and entrepreneurial skills to Africa’s
brightest young minds. “We need to look at nature as an economic asset and not just something that makes
us feel good. If you are investing in something, it means you make it more abundant.”
“We need to look at nature as an economic asset and not just something that makes us feel good.”
Few people understand the advantageous connection between Rwandans and mountain gorilla conservation
better than Uwingeli. Over the two decades that he has worked in Volcanoes, he has witnessed the park’s
evolution from a threatened area to a world-class tourism destination where locals benefit directly.

“There’s excitement from everyone
now about the gorillas,” Uwingeli
tells me the evening after my trek as
we sat by the fireplace in the book-
lined Conservation room at Singita
Kwitonda Lodge, one of the newest
luxury retreats to open next to
Volcanoes. “The community now
associates the park and the gorillas
with schools getting built, new water
tanks, electricity, roads—all of these
things came right away. Not only
have we seen government policies
that work [for gorilla conservation],
but we have also seen policies that
care about people.”
When COVID-19 shut borders, there
was concern that a lack of jobs could
result in illegal bushmeat poaching in
Volcanoes. (In Rwanda, there is no
culture of hunting great apes for food,
but often they are injured or killed by
traps set for other smaller forest animals.) So far, officials have not reported any significant upticks in
poaching attempts since the pandemic began. Uwingeli isn’t surprised: Mountain gorillas have become such
an important symbol of the nation’s identity and economic prosperity that each year the country holds a
high-profile baby gorilla naming ceremony called Kwita Izina. In 2019, more than 20,000 Rwandans were in
attendance and Naomi Campbell, who made an appearance, named one. This year, the event was held
virtually due to the pandemic, and most of the naming honors of the 24 new gorillas went to men and
women who work in the park.
According to Uwingeli, 2020 was supposed to be a banner year for tourism to the park. To make up for lost
international revenue, Rwanda has been more heavily promoting tourism to local audiences—part of a
broader trend in sub-Saharan Africa to incentivize more domestic travelers to go on safari while
international travel remains slow. Until December 31, 2020, the park has significantly discounted gorilla
permits for Rwandans and Rwandan expats (currently they pay $200 and $400, respectively, down from the
original $1,500); international visitors still pay the full $1,500.
The biggest profits won’t return until international travelers do, and so far, foreign visitors are a fraction of
what they were. It’s raising larger questions about how Rwanda might protect its parks and surrounding
communities in the event of another interruption in tourism. With this in mind, Rwanda’s Development
Board is working to find new revenue streams outside of tourism to bridge those gaps. Such methods in
discussion include joining an international fund, such as the Global Environment Fund, a sustainability-
minded private equity fund manager that could help with long-term financial planning for basic operations
such as anti-poaching when tourism dollars aren’t coming in; there’s also talk about entering the carbon
market.
Regardless, Rwanda’s ongoing efforts to evolve its sustainable tourism model reflects what Swaniker hopes
to see on a broader level in Africa. COVID-19 is offering important lessons to all nations about the vital role
tourism has in the future of the continent, he says.
“I think COVID-19 will end up being a wake-up call for governments in Africa that tourism is such a crucial
part of the economy,” says Swaniker. “This moment is also reinforcing the need to look more broadly beyond
tourism for conservation and to really think about all the different ways that you can build a wildlife
economy.”